Lionel Richie keeps Jason Mraz off Billboard top spot

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lionel Richie staved off stiff competition to hold onto the top spot of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, beating out new entries from Jason Mraz and Train.

Singer Lionel Richie arrives at the 2011 American Music Awards in Los Angeles November 20, 2011. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

“Tuskegee,” the country music-inspired 10th studio album from the 62-year-old soul singer, made the rare climb to No. 1 last week, three weeks after the album’s release and continued to hold strong this week with 114,000 copies sold.

Grammy-winning pop singer Jason Mraz debuted at No. 2 with his fourth studio album “Love Is A Four Letter Word,” a collection of laid-back, beach-inspired love songs selling 102,000 copies in its first week.

The album’s lead single, “I Won’t Give Up,” went platinum this week after selling more than a million copies since its release in January.

Pop rockers Train returned last week with their sixth studio album “California 37,” debuting at No. 4 after selling 75,000 copies, while newcomer rapper Future scored an impressive debut at No. 8 on the chart with his first album “Pluto,” selling 41,000 copies.

California quintet Maroon 5 stormed the Digital Songs chart with “Payphone,” their first single from their upcoming album “Overexposed.”

The track, featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa, sold more than 493,000 downloads in its first week, the best-ever digital song sales week for a band, knocking last week’s chart-topper Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know,” to the No. 2 position.